Sunday, April 15, 2018

Of Race and or Lack of Grace in the Age of Money

I had to glean through dozens of internet articles to locate the Starbucks where two blacks were arrested for hanging around and not ordering, two "real estate agents" waiting for a business colleague in Philly. Gleaning to get perspective on the location where the Starbucks at 18th and Locust Streets is indeed located.

The lack of an exact address meant to me that Starbucks' PR statement did not want to identify the location. But seeing the location in one of the most expensive rent neighborhoods in Center City Philly is less than a block from Rittenhouse Square where the rich in Philly have congregated and lived since the Civil War. Rittenhouse Square in terms of living space is Gramacy Park, Sutton Place and Fort Knox all rolled up into one.

All well and good. But it is a small cubbyhole fast coffee franchise and the corporate office is trying to diffuse a socially graceless situation in which "no ticky no shirty" to offered to everyone who enters to purchase not much better than average "Joe" but at Tiffany jewelry store prices.

Racism secondary to Cashism here I think.

Nothing to see here except the daily Social Media Tempest in a Coffee Cup.